Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

by Stephen Leather

  Gelled Hair said something to Petrov in rapid Russian and Petrov sneered at me. ‘You think I care that your staff know where I am?’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘It’s even easier to kill someone here than it is in Russia. If I say the word…’ He snapped his fingers. ‘It would be done, just like that.’

  ‘I’m sure it would be,’ I said. ‘But it seems like a bit of an over-reaction. And let’s face it, you didn’t even pay me so you got an hour’s work out of me for nothing.’

  Petrov’s eyes hardened. ‘You think this is funny?’

  I stopped smiling. No, I didn’t think it was funny. But I’d been threatened by men with guns several times in my life and in my experience it’s not the guys who make threats that you have to worry about. The real danger comes from the ones who just point the gun and pull the trigger.

  Not that I was going to explain that to Petrov, just in case he decided to prove me wrong.

  ‘Like I said, it seems an over-reaction. But if I’d asked you about him, would you have told me anything?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t have any choice, did I?’

  ‘My school is my business, you had no right to stick your nose in.’

  ‘I don’t care about your school, I only wanted to know that he’s okay. Do you know why he left?’

  Petrov looked at me but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Did he leave because of you?’ I asked, which was pushing my luck but I’d already convinced myself that his men weren’t going to shoot me.

  ‘Why do you ask me that?’ he said.

  ‘He did a visa run to Cambodia and told someone that he wasn’t happy at the school. I was told he was complaining all the time.’

  ‘Teachers always complain,’ he said. ‘I tell them, if they want more money, get another job. English teachers earn shit money. It’s a shit job. Anyway, they’re not in Thailand because they want to teach, they’re here for the girls.’ He pointed a finger at my face. ‘Do you know how many times I have to sack teachers because they’re sleeping with a student? Once a month, my friend. Once a month.’

  ‘Jon Clare isn’t like that,’ I said. ‘He’s a good kid.’

  ‘They’re all good kids until they get to Thailand,’ said Petrov. ‘Then they walk into a go-go bar and it’s all over.’

  ‘Did he ask you for more money?’

  The Russian nodded. ‘Sure. I told him that I paid what I paid. There’s no shortage of teachers in Bangkok, I replaced him the day he left.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose he said where he was going?’

  ‘He just didn’t turn up one day.’

  ‘And why do your office staff say that he never worked there? Why is there no file on him?’

  Petrov rubbed his chin. ‘You sell antiques, right?’

  ‘That’s my day job,’ I said. ‘But I help people when they need it.’

  ‘You were a cop, right?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you’ve got a cop’s eyes.’

  I nodded. He wasn’t the first person to have told me that. ‘I used to be, yeah.’

  ‘In the States?’

  ‘New Orleans.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’re not in New Orleans now.’

  The blonde girl stood up, stretched, and dived into the pool. She began to swim lengths in a lazy crawl.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I said. ‘Why is there no file on Jon Junior at the school?’

  ‘Because he was a complainer and I thought he might make trouble for me.’

  ‘You think that’s what he was going to do?

  Petrov shrugged. ‘He was a moaner. A complainer. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to get me in trouble with the authorities so I removed all his details. That way if anyone came knocking I could just say that he’d never worked there.’

  ‘And did anyone come knocking?’

  Petrov shook his head. ‘Not so far,’ he said. He pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. ‘Why did you want to know how much tax I paid?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ I said, even though I’d heard him perfectly.

  ‘You went to the tax office with some cock and bull story about looking for a school for your daughter. But we both you don’t have any children, don’t we?’

  I looked at him but didn’t say anything.

  He was right, I didn’t have any children. Not anymore.

  He’d been checking up on me, and I didn’t like that.

  I didn’t like it one bit.

  ‘A friend’s daughter,’ I said. ‘I was looking for a school for the daughter of a friend.’

  ‘I want you to understand something, Bob Turtledove. If I find out that you’ve been asking anyone else about my business, anyone at all, I’ll have you killed.’ He looked at me with unfeeling pale blue eyes and I could tell that he wasn’t making an idle threat. He meant it.

  ‘A contract killer in Bangkok costs less than fifty thousand baht, even when it’s a farang being killed. You cause me any more problems, and I’ll have it done. Do you understand?’

  I nodded.

  Yeah, I understood.

  ‘Is that what happened to Jon Junior?’ I said quietly.

  His eyes hardened. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘You think I had him killed?’

  ‘You just threatened me with a hitman. Maybe you did more than threaten him.’

  Petrov laughed. ‘He was a kid. Why would I kill a kid?’

  ‘Maybe he found out something he shouldn’t have. Maybe he was annoying you. Maybe he made a pass at your wife. How the hell do I know what makes you tick. That’s why I’m asking you, did you kill Jon Junior or have him killed?’

  ‘You’re a sick bastard, Turtledove.’

  ‘Yeah? Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. But Jon Junior is missing and you seem to think it’s clever to threaten to kill people, so I’m just putting two and two together.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Petrov. ‘He wasn’t that important. He couldn’t do anything to hurt me. He wanted more money, I said there wasn’t any, he said he’d get another job, I told him to go for it.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘There’s something you should know, Petrov.’

  He jutted his chin up. ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t threaten easy,’ I said. ‘I know people often say things in the heat of the moment that they don’t mean, but if you ever try to hurt me or my family, I won’t bother with a hitman. You’re right, life is cheap in Thailand, but I fight my own battles and you won’t be the first man I’ve killed.’

  I looked at him long enough for him to know that I was serious, then I smiled and left.

  Did I mean what I’d said?

  Damn right, I did.

  CHAPTER 36

  The night before I was due to go in for the colonoscopy, I told Noy what was happening. I had to. As part of the procedure I had to drink eight pints of a solution to clean out my intestines and there was no way I could do that in secret. I wasn’t supposed to eat dinner so when she asked me what I wanted to eat, I told her that I had to go back to the Bumrungrad and what they were planning to do to me.

  She wasn’t happy. But then neither was I.

  I told her that it was only a precaution, that I had no symptoms, just a blood test that suggested that there might, just might, be a problem.

  I didn’t say anything about a red flag.

  Or cancer.

  But I could see from the look on her face that she was scared.

  ‘Really, it’s nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just a precaution. Hundreds of thousands of people have it done every year and more often than not there’s nothing there.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ she said. ‘You’re doing this tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Bob, why are you telling me this now? How long have you known?’

  ‘There’s nothing to know,’ I said. ‘It’s just a test. An examination.
It’s no big deal.’

  ‘You should have told me before,’ she said. She wasn’t angry. She was hurt. I tried to hold her but she took a step back which was more painful than if she’d slapped me across the face.

  ‘Honey, I didn’t want you to worry.’

  ‘Ignorance is bliss? I’m your wife, Bob. You shouldn’t shut me out, not at a time like this.’

  ‘Honey, it’s a test. A routine test.’

  ‘For cancer.’

  I tried not to wince at the sound of the word, but I didn’t do a very good job.

  ‘That’s what colonoscopies are for, aren’t they? They look for cancer?’

  The word made me wince just as much the second time she said it.

  I stepped towards her and this time she let me hold her. ‘I don’t have cancer,’ I said. ‘I swear.’

  ‘So why are they giving you a colonoscopy?’ She held me tightly and for the first time I was really scared, not because of what might lie in my intestines but because I’d hurt her.

  ‘They did a blood test that showed up a marker that sometimes, just sometimes, indicates a problem. But I’ve no symptoms, no blood, no pain, no nothing. I’m as regular as clockwork, honey.’

  She sniffed. ‘That’s nice to know,’ she said.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘If it wasn’t for the silly marker thing, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The doctor who’s doing the procedure is one of the best in the country. She was trained in the States and she said that even if there was a problem, they’d probably be able to nip it in the bud there and then.’

  ‘It’s a woman doctor?’

  ‘Don’t go all sexist on me, honey. She’s very highly regarded.’

  Noy giggled. ‘A woman is going to put a camera up your…’ She giggled again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Oh my Buddha,’ she said.

  ‘She said the camera she uses has a laser attachment that can zap anything that looks like it might be a problem,’ I said. ‘But she said exactly what I’ve told you, more often than not the marker tends to be a false positive.’

  She stopped hugging me and looked at me, her eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘You should have told me before,’ she said.

  ‘I know, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m coming with you, tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I want to. ‘ She smiled. ‘I want to meet the woman who is going to shove a camera up my husband’s…’ She started giggling again.

  CHAPTER 37

  I got to the hospital at just before nine o’clock in the morning. I persuaded Noy not to go with me because I didn’t want to make a big thing of it. It was a simple procedure, in and out and then home. If she had come with me it would have been something bigger, something more important, and I didn’t want to feel that it was anything other than a check-up.

  Noy understood. Bless her. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me luck and I went downstairs and caught a taxi.

  I was shown to a changing room where I took off my clothes put on a pale blue hospital robe. I was shown through to another room where a pretty nurse who looked about fifteen years old sat me down in a chair and put a needle into a vein in my left arm and held it in place with a strip of sticking plaster. There were two other patients there, a Thai man in his seventies and an obese Arab who kept wiping his face with a large white handkerchief.

  Dr Ma-lee arrived fifteen minutes after I’d been prepped. She was wearing surgical scrubs and her long hair was tucked back in a net. She checked the needle and asked me how the cleansing had gone.

  Ah yes, the cleansing.

  I’d gone onto the internet to check out what was in store for me and pretty much everything I’d read suggested that the preparation was a lot more uncomfortable than the procedure. I had to drink the eight pints of solution that the hospital had given me, then wait until the eight pints had passed through me, taking pretty much everything with it.

  It was not pleasant.

  Not pleasant at all.

  The first intestinal rumblings began about six hours after I’d finished the last drop and I spent a further two hours in the bathroom.

  But I just smiled and nodded and told Dr Ma-lee that the cleansing had gone just fine.

  She explained the procedure again and asked me if I had any concerns.

  Any concerns?

  Well, yes, actually. I was concerned that there might be a tumour the size of a grapefruit in my gut and that I’d be dead by the end of the year because, please God, I didn’t want to die.

  ‘No, I’m good,’ I said, and smiled confidently.

  ‘It’s going to be fine, Khun Bob,’ she said, and patted the arm that didn’t have a needle in it.

  I guess my smile wasn’t as confident as I thought.

  She went away and five minutes later two female orderlies in pale green scrubs came in pushing a gurney. They asked me to lie down and they wheeled me down a corridor into an operating room. Dr Ma-lee was there. She’d put on a cap that matched her scrubs and was wearing surgical gloves. She asked me to lie on my side and then she attached a hypodermic to the needle in my arm and I felt a coldness spread along it and across my chest and then I felt warm and safe and happy, so happy that I actually giggled.

  I felt a draught as a nurse loosened my robe and I was still giggling as she inserted the camera and it began its twenty-two-foot voyage of discovery.

  CHAPTER 38

  I wasn’t laughing when I was wheeled into the recovery room, but I wasn’t feeling any pain, either. I’d been conscious for the whole procedure, and for most of the time had been able to watch the camera’s progress in and out of my digestive tract. Even I could see that my colon was in good shape, smooth and pink and glossy. I had the colon of a twenty-five-year old, Dr Ma-lee said at one point.

  I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling and sighed. It was over. And I was pretty sure that everything was okay. Now I just wanted to go home.

  After about fifteen minutes, Dr Ma-lee came to see me. She’d taken off her hairnet but she was still wearing her scrubs. She gave me a beaming smile. ‘No problems at all,’ she said.

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said.

  And it was.

  ‘I’d recommend that you have another colonoscopy in five years,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll put it in my diary,’ I said.

  ‘Get yourself checked every five years and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll never have a major problem with your colon,’ she said. ‘Once you get to your age, five-year checks are a life-saver.’ She placed a DVD on the table next to my gurney. ‘Here’s a copy of the recording we made.’

  ‘Thanks, doc,’ I said. ‘Can I go home now?’

  ‘Isn’t your wife coming to get you?’

  ‘I don’t want her to see me in hospital,’ I said.

  ‘Very macho,’ she said.

  ‘She doesn’t like hospitals much,’ I said.

  And to be honest, neither do I.

  ‘Just be careful,’ she said. ‘You might find you’re a bit unsteady on your feet for a while.’ She flashed me another beaming smile and left me to it.

  I actually didn’t feel too bad.

  I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, took a deep breath and stood up.

  I was fine.

  I was fit, I was healthy, I was going to live for ever.

  By the time I’d changed into my clothes I felt even better.

  I left the hospital and climbed into a taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go. Home.

  He drove away from the hospital and turned right onto Sukhumvit Soi 3. I looked at the DVD that the doctor had given me and wondered what I was supposed to do with it? Did people actually watch them? Did they sit down with a cup of coffee or a beer and revisit the journey through their intestines? Did they invite their friends and family around? I figured the best place for it was the trash can.
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br />   I heard the roar of a motorcycle engine and looked out of the window.

  There was a gun pointing at me.

  A big gun.

  A revolver.

  A Smith amp; Wesson Model 637 Chiefs Special Airweight revolver, snubnose stainless-steel barrel, aluminium alloy frame, exposed hammer, black rubber grips,. 38 calibre.

  It’s funny how your mind focuses on the little things when you’re about to die.

  The Model 637 only has five shots but the. 38 is a big bullet so five is all you need, especially when your target is sitting in a taxi just three feet from you.

  It’s a snubnose so it’s easy to conceal. And it weighs less than a pound so it’s easy to carry. Under any other circumstances I’d have said that it’s a nice gun.

  The man holding it was dark-skinned and wearing a red and white bandana across the bottom of his face. He was sitting on the back of a small motorcycle, a 110cc black Honda Click. The driver was wearing a full-face helmet with a black visor and he was revving the engine impatiently as he waited for the pillion passenger to pull the trigger.

  The shooter was holding the gun with his right hand and holding on to the driver’s shoulder with his left. The Model 637 packs a punch and I don’t think even I would try to fire it one-handed if I had the choice.

  It kicked as it fired and the window exploded into a thousand cubes and the bullet smacked against the side of my head.

  Time seemed to stop.

  I could feel a searing pain, just above my right ear.

  I could hear a bus sounding its horn.

  I could see the hatred in the shooter’s eyes which I really didn’t understand because he must have been a hired gun so it shouldn’t have been personal.

  I could smell the cordite.

  My ears were ringing from the explosion but I could hear the driver shouting ‘again, again!’ in Thai as he revved the Honda.

  I could feel cubes of glass cascading down the front of my shirt.

  I could hear the taxi driver screaming in panic.

  I could feel blood trickling down my cheek.

  I could see the shooter’s finger tightening on the trigger for the second shot.